Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/65

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Meantime, amid these upper seas condens'd

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And by conflicting winds together dash'd,
The Thunder holds her black tremendous throne;
From cloud to cloud the rending Lightnings rage;
Till, in the furious elemental war
Dissolv'd the whole precipitated mass
Unbroken floods, and solid torrents pours.

These squalls are, however, short as they are violent, and the sun soon bursts forth again in all his former fervour. The S, E, trade met us two degrees to the northward of the line, and accompanied us to 20° South, where it was succeeded by winds blowing from every point of the compass^[1]. Our ar-

1. It is a general principle in the theory of winds, that the S. E. trade is found to blow in all the southern seas, between the latitudes of 5° and 25° S. This is, however, subject to very great irregularities in the South Atlantic Ocean, within 200 leagues of the American coast, which doubtless proceed from the great elevation of this continent.

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